“Is this what will become of the Earth’s surface?” asks the entry for 22 September 2007 of Astronomy Picture of the Day, a website affiliated with Nasa (judging from its url).“The surface of the Earth is broken up into several large plates that are slowly shifting. About 250 million years ago, the plates on which the present-day continents rest were positioned quite differently, so that all the landmasses were clustered together in one supercontinent now dubbed Pangea*. About 250 million years from now, the plates are again projected to reposition themselves so that a single landmass dominates. The above simulation from the Palaeomap Project shows this giant landmass: Pangea Ultima**. At that time, the Atlantic Ocean will be just a distant memory, and whatever beings inhabit Earth will be able to walk from North America to Africa.”
- Not only will the Atlantic Ocean disappear (and be replaced by an Atlantic Mountain Range), the Indian Ocean will become a large lake, bounded by the eastern coasts of South America and Africa, and the coast of southeast Asia. The protrusion of the Indian subcontinent is still recognizable.
- Australia, Antarctica and New Guinea will be joined too; if present species persist and the resulting mountain range doesn’t prove impassable, Australia might be overrun by penguins or Antarctica by kangaroos. Or Austro-Antarctic Guinea might be ruled by a new species that’s a hybrid of both, a tuxedo-clad marsupial, hopping across the icy wastes.
- The Hudson Bay and Alaska remain recognizable, but the Great Lakes appear to disappear.
- Ireland and Great Britain obstinately refuse to merge – both with each other and with the Continent.
- Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea will change position, but not shape.
- The Mediterranean Sea will be squeezed out of existence by Africa pushing into Europe, giving rise – quite literally – to a mountain range where at present there’s still sea.
- The Korean peninsula is still there, but Japan seems to be swallowed up by the Pacific Ocean, no longer content to be the biggest ocean in the world, it will be the world’s only ocean.
*: or Pangaea, in a more conservative spelling. This name for the supercontinent that existed around the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic eras was first used by Alfred Wegener in his 1920 book Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane (’The Origin of Continents and Oceans’), in which he first proposed the theory of continental drift.**: or Pangaea Ultima, translatable as ‘the ultimate unified landmass’. The remaining sole body of water can then be dubbed Panthalassa Ultima. This map was sent in by Jenn Berg.
Weren’t Alaska and Kamchatka supposed to collide in the next few millions of years? Leaving those peninsulas in their pristine state seems rather odd.
And isn’t Australia heading northwards into the Pacific, rather than southwards to mate with Antarctica?
The whole notion of predicting the movements of the continents is really fraught with these kinds of uncertainties.
Comment by Polocrunch — December 4, 2007 @ 2:35 pm
For the same guy’s look at the past of the earth’s landmasses, check out: http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm
Comment by Chris — December 4, 2007 @ 3:10 pm
Agreed with Polocrunch that prediction of future continents is tricky business, at best. We just don’t have enough data on the long-term behavior or the convective cells that power continental drift to know with some degree of certainty how things are likely to play out. One example: in all of these maps I know of, I’m constantly struck by the absence to the slightest reference of the rift valley in Africa, which is a relatively recent geological feature and may result in the division of Africa in two continents with a new sea in between. And yet, this never seems to have any impact on all those Pangeas, I never quite understood why.
The same can be said about California. It’s well-known that everything west of the San Andreas fault is sliding towards the northwest quite quickly nowdays, and it’s thought that that process will result in the formation of a big californian island. Where is it in this map? Just vanished?
Comment by Jorge — December 4, 2007 @ 3:30 pm
Nice map, but you’re drawing a few too many conclusions. In this sort of construction, it is conventional to mark the plates by showing the current continental boundaries as far as possible. So the persistence of Hudson Bay, the Baltic, and even the North Sea is an artifact of the map-making, and doesn’t indicate that those areas of continental crust/shelf will still be submerged.
Also, per Polocrunch’s comment, there is something weird going on in Beringia – the Chukchi region looks to be in there twice! (Note the shelf to the northwest of the Alaska coastline.)
The constructor may be hedging his bets with respect to the future line of separation in the region – with the large spreading ridge to the left of the map being the culprit. The tectonics of the Bering are not well-characterized, and a number of microplates involved.
Comment by Ken — December 4, 2007 @ 3:45 pm
Jorge, looking at the constructions on the site referenced by Chris, he does consider California – see the first “Future World” map – but it will have become some mountains in southern Alaska long before the 250 million-year timeframe!
As for East Africa, it looks like he assumes that the spreading center there, as well as in the eastern Indian Ocean, will shut down and be replaced by trenches, possibly a consequence of India’s collision with Asia.
The one source I can think of offhand that depicts East Africa separating from the rest of the continent is Dougal Dixon’s “After Man: A Zoology of the Future.” His interest is primarily the illustration of evolutionary and ecological concepts, and East Africa illustrates how species can persist in isolation while becoming extinct in other regions.
Comment by Ken — December 4, 2007 @ 4:00 pm
Of course there’s a hugely speculative element in anything like this… but isn’t it the Pacific that’s contracting and the Atlantic that’s expanding? And isn’t the East side of Africa expected to split away too?
Comment by Dave On Fire — December 4, 2007 @ 5:28 pm
Well Alfred Wegener didn’t “first proposed the theory of continental drift”, but more likely proposed the first theory of continental drift.
When he was wwrote his essay, he surely discribe undeniable clues on the shifting of the continents, but the only cause he could propose was the complexions of earth under the attraction of moon’s mass. It’s later that the movements of earth’s magma were discovered, and therefore that the scientific demonstration was successfully completed.
Besides, who could ever say that the future Pangaea would be the last one, “Pangaea ultima? It seems that the merging and splitting of supercontinents is a cyclic phenomenon… Before Pangea was Rodinia (600.000.000.yrs!) and others before again… so why wouldn’t the next “Pangaea” fall apart again?
“Only” a matter of a bunch of million years.
Comment by Tertius — December 4, 2007 @ 10:17 pm
IIRC from previous readings on the subject, Australia will be heading north and smashing into SE asia, East Africa ends up with a gulf, etc… and then some of these processes will go into reverse.
The Atlantic, for instance, has opened and closed more than once.
These processes will completely mangle the detail on continents long before they join together like this again. The map is meant to be representational of the overall locations of each plate, and the familiar features are simply meant to make it easier to identify each chunk.
Comment by eccles — December 5, 2007 @ 1:07 am
Some have objected to the name “Pangea Ultima” on the grounds that the merger and splitting up of all of the earth’s continents is a cyclical phenomena that can be imagined to continue out into the far future. Consequently, it has been proposed that the supercontinent depicted here be named “Pangea Proxima” (i.e. Next Pangea)implying that other future Pangeas will form and split as the cycle continues. On the other hand, the earth is gradually cooling. At some point in the future, the earth may not generate enough internal heat to keep its plates in motion. Depending when the plates fix in place, this map may well depict “Pangea Ultima.”
Comment by Mark C — December 5, 2007 @ 2:45 am
I think a lot of the “this place is missing” (like Japan, Great Lakes) seem to be the result of the “simplified cartography” of this map, it doesn’t look llike it’s going for exact shapes (case in point, Korea. As was pointed out, it’s still there, but if you look closely it is slightly different from today’s Korea. And the Canadian Arctic islands are stil there, as pointed out, but again, if you look closely, they seem very simplified, and several are missing (like Ellesmere, the current northernmost, unless it’s the squiggly bump north of Baffin Island in the otherwise smooth former Africa.
I also find this strange: I agree with the previous posts that the cartographer is less interested in exact representations of coastlines, rather keeping some “familiar” shapes so we can get our bearings (like Hudson’s Bay, British Isles), and indeed, six of the seven current continents are not too hard to find even without the labels, but Africa is a complete mystery! If it wasn’t for the fact that the part of Africa that in this map is the “Mediterranean Mts.” is obviously what is now north Africa, I wouldn’t know which end was up in it! Arguably the most distinctively-shaped continent on present-day maps has become the least distinctively-shaped landmass on this map!
Comment by David — December 5, 2007 @ 3:59 am
[...] 213 – Pangaea Ultima: Climbing the Mediterrranean Mountains « strange maps (tags: y9_hazards_tectonics igcse_tectonics) [...]
Pingback by links for 2007-12-05 | geographyalltheway.com Updates — December 5, 2007 @ 11:25 am
Can someone explain to me why the Atlantic has disappeared? I thought that the Atlantic was widening, due to the mid-Atlantic ridge.
Ken, another source I know of that shows the effects of the African Rift Valley is the opening section of the Rand McNally world atlas. If I recall correctly, that map is only 50 million years in the future, but it shows a good chunk of East Africa tearing away from the mainland, with the tear starting in the south and working its way northward.
Comment by Paulski — December 5, 2007 @ 10:12 pm
The Atlantic is widening today, but plate tectonic models suggest that subduction will occur on either or both sides of the Atlantic. New oceanic crust formed at the mid ocean ridge if very hot and buoyant, but it gets denser as it gets older. At some point it will be dense enough that it will detach from the continental crust. A subduction zone will form along the western Atlantic coast. This is known in geology as the Wilson cycle. this website has a nice overview of the process:
http://csmres.jmu.edu/geollab/fichter/Wilson/Wilson.html
As for the East African Rift, it is part of a triple junction, a tectonic feature that forms between plates. Where all three boundaries are diverging, two continue to rift while the thrid fails (known as an aulacogen). Other examples of this in the geologic record are the Atlantic ocean where a failed rift is detected under Cameroon; and a failed rift zone under the Mississippi embayment (including the seismically active New Madrid Fault zone) which records ancient rifting within North America which records the breakup for the first known supercontinent, Rodinia.
Probably more info than you needed!
I’m enjoying the recent geologic maps!
Comment by zygospira — December 6, 2007 @ 6:56 am
You’ve been a bit hyper-correct with your Rs in the spelling of Mediterranean in your header …
Comment by zythophile — December 6, 2007 @ 5:01 pm
[...] this volcanic out gassing period, the Earth’s first oceans appeared. This was the result of the water vapor from volcanic eruptions condensing as the earth [...]
Pingback by Mother Earth: From Noxious Fumes to a Breath of Fresh Air : Environmental News — December 6, 2007 @ 5:10 pm
Nice to see Scandinavia won’t change much. Sweden: Safest Country In the World, even 250 million years from now.
;-)
Comment by A.R.Yngve — December 6, 2007 @ 7:54 pm
@ zythophile:
Well spotted! Took me a while to find the extra R even after reading your comment. Corrrecting…
Comment by strangemaps — December 6, 2007 @ 8:42 pm
At which point the world metro system will become a reality!
Comment by nexor — December 8, 2007 @ 12:51 am
“The Mediterranean Sea will be squeezed out of existence by Africa pushing into Europe, giving rise – quite literally – to a mountain range where at present there’s still sea.”
Note that band of mountains that runs across Europe from west to east – the Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians, &c. Those were caused by the collision of Africa and Europe, just as the Himalayas, Karakorum, &c, were caused by India’s ramming into Asia.
Comment by RM1(SS) (ret) — December 9, 2007 @ 5:13 am
Isn’t the Rim of Fire a subduction zone surrounding the Pacific? I’d have expected the continents to meet in the middle of the current Pacific on the next go-round.
Comment by Brian H — December 14, 2007 @ 7:09 am
it could be real? it’s scientifically based that theory or it’s just a fake?
Comment by gabriel — December 16, 2007 @ 4:59 am
I’m amazed all of Africa is able to slip into the English Channel and seperate Great Britain from France.
Comment by corbyz — December 21, 2007 @ 9:15 pm
You should probably credit – and link to – the source website of this image: http://www.scotese.com/Default.htm
Comment by Nils — December 28, 2007 @ 5:15 am
#22, I think you are mistaking Baffin Island for Great Britain. England and Ireland are the northernmost part of this Pangea – right next to France.
Comment by mentarman — January 10, 2008 @ 9:15 am
AFAIK, the Atlantic has been getting wider for about the past 200 million years and is continuing
Comment by A Person — January 15, 2008 @ 12:42 am
Climb now! don’t wait. At coronn.com you will find all information needed for to go climbing in the mountains and on the crags that is still standing there.
Comment by mike — January 15, 2008 @ 10:02 am
[...] the past and the present covered, what about the future? Well, scientists have developed a map of what the world is predicted to look like in 25 million [...]
Pingback by Seven Offbeat Approaches to Mapping the World (Past, Present and Future) at OddOrama — January 17, 2008 @ 11:38 pm
RE: #21 by Gabriel — Continental Drift is not “just a theory” or “a fake.” The relative motion of the continents has indeed been directly observed and measured, using ultra-precise ground position measurement systems involving satellites and lasers. The rate of drift is slow (it is about as fast as fingernails grow), but it has indeed been directly observed and measured. For a news report on the topic, see http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg19225780.041-continental-drift-the-final-proof.html
Comment by gdp — February 3, 2008 @ 3:17 am
i think the website should have what the tectonic plate movements. this could help lots of students around the world to see whats going to happend. it could also be a better website to show in the classroom. this is a very helpful website.
Comment by summer — February 26, 2008 @ 11:07 pm
i frist wanted to say that this website is very helpful. there are things that you could add to this page though. like of what the tectonic plates will look like in how ever many years. this would be more helpful in the classroom to show students.
Comment by summer — February 26, 2008 @ 11:12 pm
[...] Les continents dans 250 millions d’années (On ira d’Amérique en Afrique à pied) [...]
Pingback by Le Blavog » Archive du blog » Oh ! Les jolies cartes étranges ! — February 28, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
That would be cool – I could go climbing in the sea! Seriously though, its interesting to see what the world might turn out like in the future.
Comment by Climbing Guy — April 17, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
i wonder where the Philippines is…
maybe it will end up swallowed by the pacific, just like japan…
Comment by olegario39 — April 21, 2008 @ 12:23 am
the phillipines is missing too. it’s my home country..and its gone in pangea ultima..
Comment by 25467744 — April 21, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
It all sounds quite apocalyptic, but I’m actually quite pleased that there’ll be some more mountains to climb in Europe. I suppose we just have to make the most of the changes (if we live for thousands of years!)
Comment by Linda — April 24, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
guess what universal studios logo might look like in the year 250,002,008!
Comment by Jose — April 27, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
i meant 250,000,000 years from now.
Comment by Jose — April 27, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
Great Britain and Ireland as one landmass! That would be a recipe for disaster – there’d be nothing left to argue about!
Comment by Balls 2 Golf — July 4, 2008 @ 11:42 am
yes how do you know that this is what the world will look like I dont think you guys are phykik so until you gus get magical powers tell me because this is the third web site I’ve been to and so far your the worst
Comment by craig garfield — September 19, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
so how long will i take for wal-mart to look like this
Comment by craig — September 19, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
I agree with #38. This map is correct. Britain and Ireland can never be united. Never mind the physical principles of continental drift – there are more fundamental rules. Even when intelligent life on this planet consists of the hyper-intelligent descendants of present day celery, a species which keeps our strange snake-like descendants in zoos.
Comment by Rossa — January 8, 2009 @ 3:21 pm
thank you
Comment by Tony — May 4, 2009 @ 3:20 am
thanks for this map
good
luck
..
Comment by Solomon — May 11, 2009 @ 8:44 am
merci
Comment by aspicco . — May 17, 2009 @ 6:26 am
Vielen Dank
Comment by moon — July 3, 2009 @ 4:58 am
Muchas gracias
Comment by sun — July 4, 2009 @ 7:23 am